In recent years, there has been increased recognition of the need to conserve natural resources. Thus, there is pressure upon the paper and paperboard carton industries to increase the efficient use of stock material. At the same time, rising prices are also driving the quest for efficiency and economy. These demands, as well as the need to provide attractive, commercially interesting packaging for consumer goods, including food items, have created the need for a simple, attractive recyclable or disposable container for packaging consumer goods that can be cost efficiently manufactured.
It is well known in the prior art to use paperboard cartons in various forms to package and display consumer items, with specific regard to food items. A number of cartons have been used wherein a portion of the food item may be viewed through an opening or openings in one or more of the carton walls. For example, one commercially available carton has openings in one of the large side walls, as well as in portions of the side or end walls. Such cartons may be provided with an overwrap material or used with inter-packaged items.
Although commercially available display cartons, and methods of forming the cartons, for packaging various items have improved, there are some problems which have remained unaddressed. One such problem is providing a carton and blank therefor which minimizes the use of valuable resources. Another, somewhat contradictory, problem or goal is that for packaging certain items, for example, food items, the food items must be maintained in as clean condition as possible during shipment, after arrival and before use. Handling and storing packaged food items after their arrival at the point of sale is common. It is highly desirable that a package be strong enough to adequately protect the contents, yet attractively display the contents for potential consumers. With current packaging methods, stability, efficiency and safety are not enhanced to an optimum degree.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,706,592 (to Schaller), 2,174,687 (to Comley), and 2,320,665 (to Shearer) cartons or packaging for containing food items or other goods. The cartons are generally octagonally shaped and include cut-outs or inspection openings for viewing or displaying at least a portion of the contents. The patent to Schaller is not directed to containing food items, but does disclose a carton wherein two sides of the carton are linked by common flap and the full size overlapping flaps are joined to form the ends or closed width of the carton. The Schaller carton includes a knocked-out part.
None of the cartons disclosed in the above three patents is intended to display the corners or sides of the contents. More importantly, there is no suggestion in any of the three patents, nor in commercially available cartons which do display corner or side areas of products contained therein, about how to provide a blank for forming the cartons wherein the blank is nestable to reduce the consumption of paperboard stock.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,795,365 (to Currie), 2,987,176 (to Ringler) and 5,004,104 (to Saulas) are directed to reducing the use of paperboard stock material by using nestable blanks. The Ringler patent is directed to providing a can carrier that displays the contents. FIG. 11 of the Ringler patent shows the manner in which adjacent blanks may be patterned on a stock sheet with a minimum waste of the sheet material. The pattern includes particular relationships among the side panels and end and wing panels to conform the package to the contents and to display a portion of the contents. More specifically, the blank patterns are made to interfit by providing short, square-ended end straps, requiring additional die-cutting, rather than by determining the required size of the carton based on the intended contents and the desired amount of exposure of the contents at each corner, and then establishing a simple angular relationship to maximize nesting of the blanks and simplify the die-cutting process.
The patent to Saulas discloses at least a pair of nested blanks (see FIG. 2). The nesting is facilitated by "waisted" top and bottom wall panels. The end wall panel fit in complementary recesses defined by the end edges of the top and bottom wall panels by virtue of their shape. Corner parts nest also into the recesses and the end closure panels of one blank can be fully nested with those of an adjacent blank. The recesses are "sized and positioned to correspond" to the corner portions, but a specific method of sizing and positioning is not taught. The patent to Currie discloses a carton and a method of cutting blanks from stock sheet material that is somewhat similar to that disclosed in the Saulus patent.
None of the above noted patents explicitly discloses a seal-end display carton and a method for determining and relating the dimensional parameters of the carton in such a way that a carton of a desired size may be formed, yet wherein multiple blanks for forming the cartons may be nested to minimize waste of valuable paperboard. Additionally, none of the above noted patents discloses a carton structure wherein portions of the front and back panels, major side closure flaps and end closure flaps are removed to provide a generally polygonal seal-end display carton having open areas or open corners to display the contents, yet adequately protect the contents during shipment, handling and storage at the point of sale or use. Accordingly, there is a need for a simple, safe, cost efficient, strong yet disposable seal-end display carton for containing consumer goods, particularly food items.